Wednesday 24 April 2013

Taos' First Death Café: A Resounding Success


by Susan Carpenter Sims

Taos, New Mexico's first Death Café, held on April 14, 2013, far exceeded our expectations. We decided not to do RSVPs, and so we had no idea how many people would show up, although we suspected there would be perhaps 12 to 15. Much to our delighted surprise, we ended up with 22 people, including the three coordinators, Susan Carpenter Sims, Susan Varon, and Peter Callan.

Most everyone that attended was beyond enthusiastic; in fact, many seemed as though they had been hungering for such a gathering for a long time. The group consisted of a great mix of folks; we even had a couple in their twenties who were just traveling through Taos and had seen our flyer at the local grocery store. (One thing we learned from this experience was that flyers really work – several people were there because they had seen them around town.)

Our Death Café was held at a local coffee shop, Wired? Café. We used their conference room, which ended up packed to the gills, so we will be looking at other possible locations for the next one. A good portion of the time was spent going around the circle, introducing ourselves and saying why we were there. This in itself led to vibrant conversation, facilitated by Susan Carpenter Sims.

Later, we talked about negative feelings, experiences, or memories that could be preventing us from living a full life and having a “good death.” Susan then passed around a long ribbon and asked those who were willing to tie a knot in it representing that negative emotion. Once everyone's knots were tied, we took a moment of silence to “sit with” that emotion, then Susan passed the ribbon around again, asking everyone to untie their knot while reflecting on what it would mean to truly be released from that emotion.

We had planned a fairly elaborate menu for this Death Café, with three separate “courses” that were served in between sections of the conversation. Unfortunately, especially because of the room being so crowded, many people found this aspect of the gathering distracting, so next time, we will keep it simpler, and just provide self-serve snacks on a table.

At the end, when Susan asked if there would be interest in having a second Death Café, the question was met with a resounding YES. A couple of people also suggested that we organize each Café around a theme, to keep the conversation a bit more contained. We are considering possible themes as well as breaking into smaller groups for part of the conversation. Also, we will definitely ask for RSVPs next time!

7 comments:

  1. Beautifully said, Susan!

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    1. Thanks, Susan! Couldn't have done it without you :)

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  2. This is such an awesome and healthy thing. If I wasn't over the other side of the world I would have dragged my hermetic ass out for this one.

    Well done, Peter and conglomerate of Susans!

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    1. You are your hermetic ass are adorable, Sue.

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    2. I meant "and" not "are." That's what I get for posting comments after my bedtime.

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  3. I'm curious about the themes you choose?

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  4. Hi Claire. We're considering possible themes right now - things like funeral alternatives, end-of-life planning, thoughts about afterlife, etc. We've also talked about doing relevant movie screenings and discussions. Once we have a basic list of possibilities put together, we'll email it to the participants and get feedback from them.

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